British National Paragliding Accuracy Championships 2010

[melise]

The British National Paragliding Accuracy Championships were held in Shropshire over the weekend of the 5th and 6th of June and it was an exhausting but great weekend. I was in the Novice Class along with three other pilots, four teams entered and there were 13 individuals in the main competion.

On Saturday we went to the Long Mynd and we managed to mostly complete 4 rounds in the novice class and 5 in the main competition before the rain came in and we had to abandon the day at about 4pm. The conditions were difficult for launching (well for me anyway) with the wind off to the SW (across the hill) and light and variable. The landings were made more difficult due to the usual main landing field being closed by the farmer who's is using the grass for silage and didn't want it flattening, so we had to use the smaller field to the left. This includes hazards such as power cables of the southern end, trees all the way around and posts across the middle for the electric fence which had been removed for the day.

On Sunday we went back to the Long Mynd and found light and variable but mostly NW conditions. We finished the 4th (novice) and 5th (main) rounds then got in an additional full round. A few pilots started the next around with me being the last to fly, but since I had a struggle to get down thanks to the incoming storm and formation of some evil looking clouds we were then stood down and the competition was ended.

Ellie Hoskins (a local Shropshire pilot) won the novice class with a total of 28.50. I came third with a total of 34.80, my closest landing was 4.8 m so I was really pleased. The main class was won by Andy Shaw with a sickeningly good total of 0.49, Andy Webster who some of you will remember from our Dales Accuracy day came 4th with a total of 5.38. The Green Dragons A Team (Simon Sykes, Billy Elliston, John Lawrence) won the team competition with a score of 45.18.

There are a couple of videos on U-Tube of all of the rounds taken by Barrie Lonsdale is you would like to see the approaches:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZsXIfPF_CQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK8MmwCKtos

It was a really good weekend and I would recommend anyone to try it, it certainly tests and impoves your skills and the other pilots were friendly and gave us novices some good advice.

Thanks to everyone who went along, pilots, judges, launch marshals and retrieve drivers.

Melise